Information ruling: Martin may challenge `league'

This week is make-up-your-mind time for the Minister for Education and Science, Micheal Martin. He has to decide whether he will appeal the decision of the Information Commissioner, Kevin Murphy, that the results of the 1998 Leaving Cert exams should be released to three newspapers - the Sunday Times, the Kerryman and the Sunday Tribune.

The Department fears that the release of this information will lead to the compilation of school "league tables".

Following its initial application to the Department of Education and Science under the Freedom of Information Act, the Sunday Times wrote to the Department to clarify its request.

"We want to report on the performance of each post-primary school in the Leaving Certificate Examination 1998," the newspaper stated. "We believe that a survey of this nature is in the public interest particularly in assisting parents to make informed decisions about their children's education and the selection of a suitable school."

The Information Commissioner's decision was delivered on October 7th; the Department has had four weeks from that date - until this Thursday - to appeal this decision to the High Court. "We will meet the deadline and make a decision about what we are going to do," confirms a spokesperson.

Should the Department decide against appealing, the information on exam results will be released to the three newspapers. The Department is considering its legal position and examining the fine print of the commissioner's 37-page decision in order to discover whether there are any legal grounds for appeal. Of particular interest to lawyers will be the effect of section 53 of the Education Act 1998. Can this section be allowed to override the Freedom of Information Act? Can the section be applied retrospectively? Section 53 states that "notwithstanding any other enactment" the Minister may "refuse access to any information which would enable the compilation of information (that is not otherwise available to the general public) in relation to the comparative performance of schools in respect of the academic achievement of students enrolled therein".

If the Department opts to invoke section 53, the newspapers are likely to seek a judicial review. While the Minister has been quietly taking stock of the situation, the Fine Gael education spokesman, Richard Bruton, has been stirring up a storm. Last week he advised the Department against appealing the Information Commissioner's decision.

"A department which has for years insisted on exams as the only yardstick of educational success and built the whole edifice of third-level education upon them is now wringing its hands about the release of these results," Bruton wrote in the Irish Independent. Publishing league tables of exam results "may well take the lid off some facts about our education system that we'd rather not see". The following day, however, Bruton was forced to "refine" his position. Journalists should use the information responsibly, he told The Irish Times. He would not like to see a "crude snapshot of results", he said. This backtracking is regarded as something of an embarrassment for Bruton, whose party voted in favour of the Education Act. This week, a delegation including representatives from the ASTI, the TUI, the National Parents Council (Post Primary), the IVEA, the Joint Managerial Body, the National Association of Principals and Vice-Principals and the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools will meet the Minister to discuss the issues involved. All these organisations are opposed to the publication of league tables. "League tables measure exam results but don't take into account a school's social setting or intake of pupils," says Bernadine O'Sullivan, who is president of the ASTI. "In Britain the publication of league tables has resulted in schools being less willing to admit students of mixed ability. In Ireland, the Department of Education is committed to the integration of students with all kinds of disability, including social disadvantage.

"For some students getting five passes in the Leaving Cert is a wonderful achievement," O'Sullivan says. "Yet it could put a school at the bottom of the league table." Many disadvantaged schools in Britain are worse off today than they were before the introduction of league tables, O'Sullivan argues. Labelling schools "sink schools" is demotivating and demoralising for teachers, students and parents, she says.

`It's important that parents can have access to information," comments Sister Teresa McCormack of the Conference of Religious in Ireland. "We need an open and transparent system. "However, the issue here is that with league tables we are talking about ranking schools and making comparisons," McCormack says. "This is not valid information, because we are not comparing like with like. Schools differ in relation to intake, performance and ability levels. League tables don't take account of these differences. "There's no value in simply saying that this school is at the top and that one at the bottom, because it's meaningless."

Fionnuala Kilfeather, national co-ordinator of the National Parents Council (Primary) also argues for more information about schools. "We are in favour of meaningful information," she says. "But we are not in favour of publishing league tables. Parents are looking for information on a whole range of issues - facilities, how a school interacts with parents, the guidance-counselling provision, interaction with the local community, student and parent councils, the range of curricular options and the availability of learning supports." The ways some schools are able to achieve more than others also needs to be examined and information shared, Kilfeather says. Whatever becomes of the Information Commissioner's decision, the Minister should set up a working party to examine how good and meaningful information on schools can be collected and be disseminated.

"We don't have to follow what they do in Britain," Kilfeather argues. However, she notes, the NPC

in fact lobbied against freedom-of-information exemptions during the Dail debate on the Education Bill.